OLEG YANUSHEVSKY: ICONIC RUSSIAN ARTIST FINDS ASYLUM IN
LONDON

By Andrew Jack

LONDON, 12 MAY 2007  Britain has collected a gallery of
influential Russians seeking political exile since President Vladimir
Putin came to office in 2000, but Oleg Yanushevsky has a rather more
original claim. He is the first contemporary Russian artist to win asylum
because of cultural persecution.

In late 2005, he arrived at Heathrow Airport and announced his request
to surprised immigration officers, triggering a lengthy period in waiting
in Liverpool that has now concluded with his British passport and
his establishment at the Solana Gallery in London.

A few years earlier, such a move would have seemed inconceivable for
him. Born in Ukraine, Yanushevsky trained at the Repin Institute in
Leningrad (now St Petersburg). He established links with foreign artists
and spent time during the 1990s in the UK and elsewhere abroad. But he
felt then that his spiritual home, and the place offering the greatest
artistic inspiration, was St Petersburg.

The son of a welder in Lugansk, Yanushevsky was encouraged at school in
his art by his fathera committed Communistand sent for lengthy summer
holidays to relatives in Lithuania. Most were Old Believersa group that
split from the Orthodox Church in the seventeenth centuryand included
several icon painters among its ranks, including an uncle.

Oleg Yanushevsky: CD
IconPhoto courtesy of Oleg Ikona

After military service in the early 1980s, which (thanks to his role as
a operator of a powerful radio monitoring Cuba) gave him access to western
music and information, Yanushevsky entered the Repin Institute on his
third attempt, living on a shoestring with help from cultural friends.

While he considers himself an atheist, angels were already appearing in
his paintings in the early 1990s. His first icons soon followedbased
upon, but distinctly different fromthose used in churches. While he has
embraced many different artistic forms sinceincluding performance art and
photographythis one continues to dominate, to the point that he has even
re-named himself "Oleg Icona".

His icons are partly inspired by the Old Believer tradition, which
often includes abstract themes and partial representations of Christ, but
co-opts and radically adjusts them. Some look fully religious at first
glance, complete with classic thick gold frames and religious figures. But
there are always unexpected twists in style, and with many containing
switches, music and other interactive devices.

Oleg Yanushevsky: St.
GeorgePhoto courtesy of Oleg Ikona

Some contain very direct personal references, including Siberian
Wind , which depicts his grandmother surrounding by swirling snow,
and framed by a distorted red star, symbolising the persecution of the
family, with relatives who disappeared into Stalin's Gulag. Another
consists of little more than a standard-issue KGB leather jacket, with a
chunky zip viewers are invited to open.

Others address more international themes. BeforeAfter
parodies cosmetic surgery in the US, showing two images of the same woman
before and after a face-lift; Schwarzenegger depicts the
body-builder; St George shows a beaming George Bush; and Kennedy
and Lenin symbolises two saint-like figures for the two former
super-powers.

The first sign of a problem with his work began with an explicitly
politically-charged example with a religious undertone. B&G
Icon was inspired by the sixteenth century persecution of Boris and
Gleb from Pskov. Its heavy frame is based on a wooden moulding for casting
military parts, which he says is symbolic of the persecution of the
feudal-military state reminiscent of that suffered by his Old Believer
ancestors.

Oleg Yanushevsky: B&G
IconPhoto courtesy of Oleg Ikona

Its explicit subjecthighlighted by tiny "B" and "G" letters in the
picturewas the harassment by the Russian state from the start of the
Putin regime of Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, two influential
business "oligarchs" who both rapidly ended up fleeing Russiathe former
for France and then the UK; the latter for Spain, the US and Israel.

When Yanushevsky put the icon on display in Moscow in 2001, someone
spat on it. But within two years, such reactions would seem mild.

A planned exhibition at the former Museum of Religion in St Petersburg
was cancelled at very short notice in 2003, with the organisers hinting at
concerns about "blasphemy". Works such as Big Mama, with large
three-dimensional breasts that flash with blue laser lights, and
Manpower , with a Christ bearing a flick switch in a sensitive
place, did not go down well with the new rising mood of conservatism and
tighter links between Orthodox church and state.

Oleg Yanushevsky: Big
MamaPhoto courtesy of Oleg Ikona

But youth groups linked to religious nationalism also began reflecting
a rising undercurrent of violence in modern Russian society. The Sakharov
Gallery in Moscow was vandalised for a show of modern art criticising
religion. Marat Gelman, the well-known Moscow gallery-owner, was careful
to only show Yanushevsky's works by appointment, but he was targeted for
showing other artists' work.

Yanushevsky's own experiences culminated in the events around his show
at the Spas gallery in St Petersburg in 2004. When the duty employee
became suspicious at visitors asking when he would appear, and called him
on his mobile, he stayed away, avoiding an almost certain beating. But a
group of masked people then appeared and sprayed many of his icons with
paint.

Photo courtesy of Oleg Ikona

The police moved slowly in their investigationpreventing him even from
having access in the aftermath which would have reduced the damageand
ultimately dropping the case, warning him that he had been
provocative.

In the months that followed, he and his family were insulted by
acquaintances in public places, and he began to receive threatening emails
and anti-semitic denunciations on religious websites. Then City officials
started imposing surreal administrative hurdles that meant his artist's
studio was under threat. It was subsequently fire-bombed. It was time to
leave.

Today, Yanushevksy is re-creating his life in London. There may not be
the creative explosion and edgy tension that helped his work over the past
decade in Russia, but he appreciates the tolerance and talent he comes
across in the UK. And he sees plenty of scope for new "iconography" of his
own sort, in multimedia and performance art as well as more traditional
icons, in portraying consumerism and the tensions between East and
West.

While drawing on the rich artistic tradition of his past, he is happy
for now to be doing it from the greater safety of his current
location.

Andrew Jack is a senior journalist at the Financial Times and
the author of Inside Putin's Russia: Can There Be Reform without
Democracy? (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004, 2007). He is also a
member of the editorial board of Culturekiosque.com and last wrote on The Perfect Storm: Iran Sits in Eye
of Political Hurricane.